Abstract
Biosurfactants are microbially synthesized surfactants that are environmental friendly due to low toxicity. Sophorolipid is one of the simplest biosurfactants with well-defined structure produced by Starmerella bombicola(ATCC 22214) on glucose and vegetable oil as the carbon source. The raw material cost accounts for 10–30% of the overall cost. Glycerol is readily available from a commercial fat-splitting process as sweetwater at a very low cost. Sophorolipids was synthesized using glycerol and sweetwater as a cost-effective carbon source. The glycerol was further replaced with sweetwater as a source of glycerol. Optimum glycerol concentration was 15% w/v with 10% w/v sunflower oil, giving 6.6 g/L of sophorolipids. The crude sophorolipid contains two major components; both of them were lactonic sophorolipids as analyzed by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), liquid chromatography–mass spectroscopy (LC-MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR).
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This study is financially supported by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, under sanction order number BT/PR8481/PID/06/334/2006.
Notes
*The values given are means of three consecutive experiments ± standard deviations.
*The values given are means of three consecutive experiments ± standard deviations. SL-1, lactonic sophorolipids.
†By anthrone method.
Footnote‡By RP-HPLC method 210 rpm at 30°C for 200 hr in orbital shaker.
‡Yield obtained in the present work.
*The values given are means of three consecutive experiments ± standard deviations.